


I Will Arise

by Sapphy



Series: The Prodigal Sons Verse [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms, Injustice: Gods Among Us, The Movement (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Coma, Dystopia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Families of Choice, Family Drama, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Open Relationships, Rebellion, Reunions, Team as Family, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne gets his New Years wish, and his lost sons are returned to him. But they're not the men they were, and their troubles are just beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This ignores everything that happened after issue 14 of year three, but takes place a month or so after the events of that comic. It ignores the game canon completely.
> 
> The primary focus in this story is going to be Jason and Tim. The plan is for there to be more in this series eventually, focussing on other characters.
> 
> The title comes from the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32);
> 
> "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,  
> And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Hood seeks help from an unlikely source.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don't know, Pandora is THE Pandora, the one who released all sin into the world. She's now immortal and has dedicated her life to fighting the Sins she released. Find out more about her in Trinity of Sin: Pandora.
> 
> Christopher and Roshanna are members of the Superhero team/political revolutionary group The Movement. Christopher is an adorable very gay very Christian kid who may be a very messed up shape-shifter or may be possessed by a Demon. Roshanna is an earthquake manipulator and the first openly Ace character in DC comics. The other members of the team mentioned are Holly (the leader), Ven (a disabled former addict), Mouse (the king of vermin) and Kulap (an angry first gen immigrant with a sword). Find out more about them in The Movement.
> 
> The surname I've given Pandora isn't canonical, it's the Assyrian word for womb or mother. She doesn't actually have a surname, and that seemed fitting.

Christopher peers around the corner of the building, keeping his shoulder pressed tight against the wall. Roshanna takes the opportunity to adjust her socks, which have slid down to bunch uncomfortably under the soles of her feet. New clothes are a rare luxury in the Tweens, so when her last pair had finally fallen to pieces, she'd had a choice of too big or too small. She'd gone with too big, and has regretted it every day since.

Behind her, Red Hood's breath echoes slightly inside his creepy mask.

She doesn't like their guests. She trusts Holly's judgment, believes her that they aren't the enemy, but there's something about them that creeps her out. Or rather, since the younger one is rarely conscious for more than a few hours at a time, something about Red Hood.

He's been with them nearly a year now, and she's still never seen his face. He accepts the food Ven gives him willingly enough, but he always disappeared off into some secret corner out of sight to eat it. He's secretive to the point of rudeness, and treats the Movement leadership either like children or threats, depending mostly on how close to his comatose friend they get.

Ahead of her, well out of her line of sight, she can hear the heavy thud thud of Peacekeepers patrolling the borders, and her fear is mixed with a small surge of pride that even men under orders from Superman himself won't enter the Tweens without reason.

She still can’t believe how bad things have got. Even Kulap in her darkest moments had never predicted a time when Superman would be as big a threat to the Movement as police or starvation. It's like living in one of Ven’s dystopian novels.

So far they haven’t had much trouble with the Peacekeepers. A few scuffles that taught them to respect the boundaries of the Tweens, nothing more. But that's at least in part because the Movement is staying firmly put, not venturing out into Peacekeeper controlled territory. If they're caught leaving, it could mean the beginning of the end for the truce.

“Are you sure about this,” she asks nervously.

“No,” Red Hood replies. “But Red Robin is, so we’re doing it.”

“If I had a boyfriend as beautiful and kind and clever as Robin, I would also do whatever he asked,” Christopher agrees.

“He’s not… Look, much as I hate to admit it, Red is the best tactical mind I know. He’s like Batman, except he’d never sacrifice people he loved, not for anything. So if he says we do this, we do this.”

“Plus he’s very beautiful,” Christopher agrees seraphically. “We should move now, the Peacekeepers are playing with their phones.”

Hood makes a disgusted noise. “Undisciplined, barely trained, easily distracted civilians. And what does Superman do? Gives them all guns and control of the country. Jesus, you couldn’t make this shit up.”

Roshanna had wanted to tunnel out, if they had to leave at all, but Hood had refused and to her surprise Holly had backed him. “Too noisy, too dangerous. The risk of retaliation if you’re discovered is much higher. Chances are the guards won’t know your and Christopher’s faces. If you’re caught, you’re just two kids playing a stupid game.” She hadn’t mentioned how they were supposed to explain Red Hood, with his creepy mask. He's wearing civilian clothes, or at least clothes that mostly disguise the amount of body armour he's wearing underneath them, but even if he takes it off, the helmet is bulky and noticeable. Presumably, Holly trusts him but not them not to get caught, which is slightly insulting, but also reasonable, given that he’d been trained by Batman and neither she nor Christopher have had any real training for any of this.

The three Peacekeepers on West Avenue are huddled together, staring at someone’s phone. Roshanna, Christopher and Hood actually pass close enough that she can hear the meowing of the cat on whatever video they’re watching.

Hood ducks ahead of Christopher as soon as they’re past them, taking point. Neither of them object. He’s the only one of them with any experience at this kind of thing. They’d only been sent because Kulap is busy and Mouse has taken an intense dislike to Hood.

They’re meeting their contact in a house on the other side of town, in the sort of affluent neighbourhood that will be crawling with Peacekeepers and cops, about as inconvenient a location as it’s possible to imagine. Roshanna had objected, and for once Kulap had backed her up, but this woman is apparently the only one who can help Hood and his boyfriend, and she’s not the sort of person you argue with.

They can’t just get a bus like normal people, because Red Hood refuses to show his face, so they have a long exhausting walk. Roshanna and Christopher don’t bother trying to hide from the police and Peacekeepers they pass. They’re neither of them especially memorable, and the police aren’t used to seeing them out of uniform, so they’re not worried about being caught. Red Hood disappears once they get into the more populated areas, and it takes them a few minutes to spot him again. He’s taken to the rooftops, moving swiftly and silently, only occasionally visible in the light of a street lamp, and even then she’s pretty sure he’s deliberately letting them see him so they know he hasn’t abandoned them.

The streets are busy, but not so busy as they ought to be on New Year’s Eve. That’s Superman’s fault. There’s precious little to celebrate, and no real hope that the New Year will be any better than the old one. The streets no longer belong to the people, every avenue and crossing guarded with Peacekeepers, and those people who do venture out aren’t partying in the streets like they would once have been, or falling drunk from bars, but hurrying to safety, their heads down in the hope of avoiding notice. The sight of them, these scared helpless people running from the soldiers meant to protect them, turns Roshanna’s stomach, reminds her all over again why the Movement exists.

Roshanna hasn’t spoken to the woman they’re going to meet, but she knows about her and she doesn’t like anything she knows. Never mind all that ‘mother of sin’ stuff, that’s not her religion or her problem, but by all accounts this woman has real power, and she’s hiding out in the nice part of Coral City, instead of trying to help. The Movement isn’t doing much, but they’re keeping people safe, providing a haven for people like Red Hood and his boyfriend. People like Black Canary are actually willingly giving up their lives just to bring people the truth. And this woman, with all her power, is doing nothing.

The building where the woman’s hiding out is fancy, one of those expensive apartment blocks they built on the site of the old market. Urban redevelopment they’d called it. A lot of the people in the Sweatshop had relied on the market for their food and livelihood.

There’s a list of names by the door, with buttons next to each of them. Red Hood presses the button labelled  Pandora Agarin, and a pleasant female voice, slightly accented with an accent Roshanna doesn’t recognise, says, “hello?”

“It’s Red Hood.”

There’s a buzzing noise, and Hood pushes the door open.

Pandora is living on the fourth floor, and the elevator ride up is awkward and silent. She meets them at the door, silent and serious as she gestures them inside.

Her hair is a shade of grey closer to lilac, though she doesn’t look more than twenty-five, her eyes a blue so vivid it looks unreal. She’s dressed all in red, and three scars stand out starkly on each cheek. She’s one of the most striking people Roshanna has ever seen, but there’s a coldness in her eyes that spoils her beauty.

“You said in your message you needed my help,” she says, when they’re standing awkwardly in her living room.

“You were the only major magic user we could find.”

“The rest have picked sides in this petty war,” she agrees. “Or they’re better at hiding than me.”

“We need to get to the Tower of Fate,” Red Hood tells her. “As soon as possible.”

“I don’t have the power to break Fate’s wards.”

“Do you need to? Couldn’t you just… drop us on the doorstep or something?”

“And if I could? What does it serve me?”

Roshanna can’t help it, she explodes. “Just because you think you’re too high and mighty to get involved in this war, doesn’t mean it’s not important! Superman is killing people, innocent people, and you’re just sitting around in your fancy apartment doing nothing! All Hood wants is to get back to his family and try and help in the fight against Superman, and you’re asking for payment?!”

Pandora doesn’t look angry, rather a little sad. “You think I am selfish because I will not fight your Superman?” she asks. “I have my own war, fought against Sin itself. You fight the symptom, I fight the disease itself. You slap on bandage after bandage while I try to come up with a cure!”

Roshanna is silent, embarrassed and ashamed by her outburst, and confused by the woman’s answer. Fortunately Christopher, with his warm open face that people can’t help trusting, comes to her rescue.

“She didn’t mean to offend you, ma'am,” he says, all wide eyed sincerity and old-world charm. “She’s just tired and scared. We all are. And I’m sure you’re doing important work. We can’t fight sin itself, not any of us, and if you can then that’s holy work sure enough. But Red Hood and Red Robin, they got a fight too, and if you help them, they can save people. Keep more people from being killed. Isn’t that enough of a payment?”

Pandora visibly calms, her stance relaxing, and her eyes warming. “Well said, my friend. Yes, you are right. Treating the symptoms cannot be all, but it is still important if we wish to save the patient. I am sorry for my harsh words.” She turns to Red Hood. “You wish transport for yourself and another, to the Tower of Fate? I can do that. I cannot get you inside though. For that you will have to rely on Doctor Fate himself, and he’s an unreliable bastard most of the time. But we’ll see. Are you ready to go now?”

“We’ll need to collect Red Robin,” Hood says, “And then we can go.”

“Oh, no need. I can take him from where he is. Say your goodbyes now, and I will take you.”

“Okay, well…” he turns to Roshanna and Christopher, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “I know we haven’t been the easiest guests. _I_ haven’t been the easiest guest. But Robin would be dead if it wasn’t for the moment. I won’t ever forget that. We owe you guys.”

“You can repay us by bringing down Superman,” Roshanna says, taking his proffered hand and shaking it.

“Look after Robin,” Christopher says sincerely, shaking Red Hood’s hand in turn. “He’s very nice and very beautiful.”

Hood makes a noise inside his mask that Roshanna thinks might be a snort of laughter. “Will do. Say goodbye and thank you to the others, please. Especially Holly. And good luck. With me and Robin stirring up the One World hornet’s nest, you’re going to need it.”

“Ready?” Pandora asks, laying a hand on his shoulder. She looks different somehow, more angular and less human, something almost hawk-like about her features. “Think about Red Robin, I will use your connection to him to find him.”

Red Hood nods, once, waves to them, and then they’re both gone, vanishing in a sudden burst of blinding light, just as the fireworks begin outside.


	2. Chapter One: New Year's Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Harley play Wed Bed Behead and Bruce reflects on what he's lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The messages Bruce mentions are from my Christmas Injustice series. The events of those ficsare canonical in this verse, but the stories themselves are aren't because I made all sorts of stupid mistakes and forgot who was dead.

“Okay okay okay,” Harley says, gesturing at Constantine with her glass. The contents, something deep red and slightly sticky, threaten to slosh out over her leg, but mostly don’t. “Two-Face, er Riddler… and Killer Croc!”

Constantine leans back in his chair and grins at her. He’s got a nice smile. “That’s a hard one. I’m gonna go with… marry Croc, fuck Riddler and kill Two-Face.”

“What? No! Wrong. Why? Why would you marry Croc?!”

“Well, I can’t marry Two-Face, he’d probably try to kill me. And I’m not sleeping with him either, ‘cos that whole do everything in twos thing of his would just make sex complicated. And if I married Riddler, I’d probably end up strangling him within the week. So obviously, I fuck him. Which leaves me spending the rest of my life with Croc, which isn’t ideal, but I could probably arrange to have a headache for the rest of my life, and he’d be pretty easy to cook for.”

“I think Riddler’s asexual.”

“That’s not fair! You can’t give me three names and then tell me one of them doesn’t like sex! All of them have to be available for all the options, otherwise the game doesn’t work!”

She laughs at the outraged expression on his face. He’s about halfway drunk, if she’s any judge, still more sober than her, but tipsy enough to be taking their game extremely seriously.

“My go,” he says, looking round the room as though for inspiration. “Okay, so… Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman!” He looks extremely pleased with himself.

She pulls a face. “Ewww, that’s just mean!”

“You said anything goes, remember? I distinctly remember you saying that. Anyway, it’s not that mean, they’re all good looking.”

“Well yes, but Superman’s evil. I can’t marry him, and no way am I fucking him. That’s just gross. But I don’t want to fuck Wonder Woman either, she’s a bitch. And obviously I can’t fuck Batman, that would just be weird.”

“Why weird? He’s a good looking guy, morally upstanding, not too much older than you. Fabulously wealthy, or he will be once we defeat Supes and get his accounts unfrozen.”

“Yeah, but he’s Batman! I mean, can you imagine kissing him? Eugh.” She doesn’t add that after years of feeling like the other woman in Joker and Batman’s marriage, it would feel a little too much like making out with her ex’s ex.

He looks thoughtful. “I can totally imagine kissing him. I _am_ imagining it, right now. The cowl would get in the way, but I bet it’d be good.”

She laughs at the mental image. “You would not kiss Batman.”

“I would totally kiss Batman. I would _snog_ Batman.”

“Yeah? Prove it!”

“I will. I’m going to kiss Batman. At midnight. When the clock strikes midnight, I’m going to kiss Batman.”

Harley is laughing so hard it hurts, and every time she manages to draw breath, she looks up and catches his resolute expression, and can’t help starting up again.

“What’re you two giggling about?” Zatanna asks from somewhere behind Harley’s chair.

“He says…” Harley begins, and then has to stop as another peal of laughter forces its way out, “He says he’s… going to kiss Batman!” She doubles over with laughter, and Constantine reaches over and carefully takes her glass from her before she can spill the contents all down herself.

“Well, that’s certainly an interesting mental image,” Zatanna says, coming round to perch on the arm of Constantine’s chair. “He’ll probably punch you you know.”

Constantine shrugs.”Wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway, I like it a bit rough, you know that,” he adds, with a wink that sets Harley laughing again. She hasn’t laughed this hard since before… since Mr J. It feels good.

“If you fuck him, you have to give me all the details,” Zatanna says, sounding amused. “All of them. Actually, you have to film it.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for the Dark Knight?” Constantine asks her, slipping an arm around her waist and looking up at her with eyes full of fond teasing.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t,” she retorts. “I’ve seen you checking out his ass.”

“Well it does look fabulous in that suit,” Constantine agrees cheerfully. “Not as good as yours of course.”

Zatanna smacks him, but she smiles too. Harley can’t work out their relationship. They’ve obviously known one another a long time, and Rose thinks they’re married, but they both flirt openly with other people, and she doesn’t think it’s the kind of idle automatic flirting some people do. Nightwing had been like that she remembers, flirted as easily as breathing, and hadn’t meant a word of it. These two aren’t like that. She’s pretty sure Constantine wants to sleep with her, and she’s equally sure Zatanna knows it and doesn’t mind. But at the same time, there’s not a shadow of a doubt in her mind that Constantine adores Zatanna, and that she loves him with a kind of weary fondness that will survive anything.

“What’s that about Bruce’s arse?” Selina asks, drifting over. It’s just the residents of the tower for New Years, no big party like they’d had for Christmas. Rose is safely in bed, hopefully sleeping, and Bruce is helping Alfred with the washing up, so it’s just the four of them, plus Mr Fate and Detective Chimp, in the living room.

“Catwoman,” Harley exclaims, “Constantine says he’s going to kiss Bruce at midnight!”

Selina chuckles in that smoky sexy way she has that Harley’s so jealous of. When Harley giggles she sounds like a little girl. When Selina does it it sounds like pure sex. “Now that I’d like to see. You realise he’d probably hit you? He’s been known to take a swing at me, if I catch him unawares.”

“Worth it,” Constantine says. “Definitely worth it.”

“I will wager you five dollars that you will not manage it,” Detective Chimp says, knuckling over to join the conversation, followed by Mr Fate.

“Oh you are so on mate,” Constantine crows. “I’ve never beaten an ape in a bet before, but with you it will be my very great pleasure.”

The monkey does that thing with his mouth, the thing that could be a grin or could be him showing his teeth as a threat, and holds out a hand for Constantine to shake.

Harley’s laughing again, great gasping guffaws that have her shaking in her seat as they shake, their expressions comically serious.

“They do say you should start the New Year as you mean to go on,” Zatanna says, grinning down at Constantine.

“What, you think I’ve going to spend 2015 making out with Batman?”

“I think you’re going to spend the next year doing stupidly dangerous shit and kissing people way out of your league,” she says, with a quirk of the lips.

“Hey, if I didn’t try for people out of my league, I’d never have got you,” Constantine replies, pulling Zatanna down into a sweet kiss.

They’re adorable, kissing with the kind of easy familiarity that speak of years of storms weathered together, and Harley can’t resist making an ‘awww’ face at them.

Selina breaks it up by slapping Constantine upside the head. “You’re both nauseating. We’re supposed to be getting disgustingly drunk, remember?”

“We are,” Constantine replies, grinning at her. “Zee only kisses me in public when she’s really pissed. Go find Brucey if you’re so jealous.”

“Hey!” Harley exclaims, offended, “she can’t do that! That leaves me with a choice of the chimp and Mr Helmet Face for my New Years kiss! That’s not fair!”

Zatanna bursts out laughing, leaning back with only Constantine’s arm keeping her from toppling straight off the chair. Selina smirks. “Don’t look at me Clown Girl; I know where you’ve been.”

Zatanna’s laughter subsides enough for her to say, “Don’t worry Harles, I’ll kiss you.”

“What about me?” Constantine demands, at the exact same moment that Detective Chimp says, “Well now I’m feeling distinctly unloved.” Harley laughs so hard she falls out of her chair.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Laughter drifts into the kitchen from the living room, making Alfred smile as he hands Bruce a teacup to dry.

In his more reflective moments, Bruce sometimes thinks his life could be measured best in these little moments, standing quietly beside Alfred in the warmth of a kitchen, drying while Alfred washes. They’d done it after his parents wake, he remembers, even though they’d had caterers, Bruce finding a kind of meditative calm in the repetitive actions. When he’d come back from his travels too, the moment he’d really known he was back was when he’d followed Alfred into the kitchen after dinner, and Alfred had wordlessly handed him the dishtowel. The night he adopted Dick, Jason’s funeral, finding out about Damian. All the big events in his life have been followed by one of these quiet moments, just him and the man who is a father to him in all but name, silently washing up.

It’s been a long time since they did this, too long spent fighting and running and not enough time just standing still. Bruce knows this little lull won’t last, knows the quiet of the last few weeks could be broken at any moment, but that just makes it all the more precious.

The kitchen smells of coal smoke, and the baked ham they’d had for dinner, and lemon scented dish soap. It doesn’t smell like the manor, but it does smell like a home, and it’s comforting. Bruce closes his eyes for a minute, allows himself to imagine that Dick and Jason and Tim, and even Damian, are in the living room, that the girlish laughter is Steph, or Babs. Cassie didn’t laugh, not out loud. But she’d grin, smug and self-satisfied and clearly amused when she managed to make the others laugh. God, he misses his family.

At least he knows Cassie and Steph are safe. He’s forbidden them from coming home, and while he thinks Steph is probably still furious about it, he knows Cassie understands. She’ll keep the younger girl out of trouble, and anyway, they’re needed elsewhere. America isn’t the only country under Superman’s thumb, and China needs people who understand how the man operates. They can do more good there than they could here. He misses them, but in the way that he misses Alfred while he was travelling, a comforting sort of ache, knowing he would be there when Bruce was ready to come home.

The way he misses his boys is different. Loosing Dick… He knows, deep down, that it had been an accident, that Damian didn’t do it on purpose. That as much as he was capable, Damian had genuinely loved Dick. But in the moment, in the heart-rending shock of seeing the still body of his oldest son, he hadn’t been rational, hadn’t been understanding. He’d been angry, and unreasonable, and he’d pushed Damian right into the arms of Superman. He will never recover from Dick’s death, doesn’t think any parent ever gets over the loss of a child, but it’s the loss of Damian that really eats at him, keeps him from sleeping, wakes him up crying, because that he could have done something about it. He could have saved Damian, and he didn’t, and that’s something he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life.

So Dick’s gone, but Damian is alive and well, even if he’s currently with people even more toxic than his mother. Steph and Cassie are alive and well and doing what they do best. Babs was hit hard by the loss of her father, but she’s strong, stronger than anyone he’s ever known, and she’ll be okay. And Tim is alive. It’s not much, alive can mean a thousand things, most of them bad, but it’s _something_. Alive means there’s at least a chance of him coming home.

He doesn’t even have the comfort of knowing Jason is alive. He hopes he is, tells himself that Joker failed to kill him once, no way would Jay have let him finish the job, but if he’s out there, why hasn’t Bruce heard anything? Jason wouldn’t just sit by and do nothing, if he was okay surely he’d be helping people, drawing attention to himself. Surely Bruce would have found him by now.

He’s jerked from his reverie by Alfred gently taking the teacup from him, setting it down and taking his hands. Bruce realises distantly that he’s shaking.

“Where are they, Alfred?” he asks, his voice thick with emotion. “Where _are_ they?”

Alfred draws him into an embrace, his soapy hands leaving wet prints on Bruce’s back. “Keeping safe, looking out for each other. Trying to find a way back home.” The old man’s voice is soft, reassuring. “Master Tim is the cleverest boy you ever trained, you know that, and Master Jason will protect him no matter what.”

“What if he’s snapped again?” Bruce asks, voicing just one of the myriad fears he hasn’t been able to shake. “What if the stress of it all is too much and he… he slips back. Into what he was when he first came back?”

“Then you’ll find him, and care for him, and he’ll get better,” Alfred says firmly. “He’s done it before, he can do it again. He’s tough, you know that. Master Jason could be in hell itself and he’d spit in the devil’s eye and claw his way back. You know that.”

It’s ridiculous, and the words are meaningless, just an attempt to reassure him, but Bruce relaxes, just a little. They’ve always found their way home before. There’s no reason this time should be any different. Except that Dick had always found his way back as well, and now he’s gone, really and finally gone.

“I just want them home,” he says helplessly. “I want them back with me, where I can watch over them. I want to be able to stand at their bedroom doors and watch them sleeping, like when they first came to me. I want to train with them, and fight with them, and listen to the awful racket Jason’s calls music and Tim’s incomprehensible rants about films I haven’t watched. I want them _home._ ”

“You know Miss Helena prays for them? Every night. She’s had them added to the prayer list at her church too. Miss Barbara has a million electronic alerts set up, so if anyone spots them, anyone at all, she’ll know. And they know you’re looking for them, that message Miss Zatanna and Mr Constantine sent at Christmas, it would only have gone if Master Tim had been able to receive it. They’re coming home to us, we just have to be patient and trust them.”

Bruce feels a little guilty then. He always forgets, in the intensity of his emotion, that Alfred is missing them just as much as him. That they might be Bruce’s sons, but Alfred has had just as much of a hand in raising them and caring for them. Alfred has be to hurting just as much as Bruce, and instead of crying over the washing up he’s getting on with the things that needed doing, keeping the Insurgency in line, feeding them all, looking out for young Rose Constantine, and keeping Bruce from falling apart.

He pulls the old man too him, hugging him tightly. “You’re right. They’ll come when they’re ready.”

Alfred pats his back.”I know Master Bruce. And while we wait, there’s washing up to do.”

Bruce laughs, a pathetic soggy little thing, but there at least, and lets Alfred go.

“Got to get this done before midnight,” he says. “I don’t think Selina would forgive me if I didn’t kiss her at midnight. She’s been dropping hints about it all week.”

Alfred laughs. “If you’re picking up on them, then they’re not hints. More like anvils.”

Bruce joins in his laughter. He’s aware he’s not very good at the whole relationship thing he and Selina are tentatively trying. He’d resisted for so long, sure she wouldn’t want him when she realised he wasn’t interested in sex, or that something would happen and they’d end up on opposite sides again, like in the old days, but when he finally voiced these concerns Selina had laughed, warm and affectionate, with a sort of amused impatience in her eyes that Bruce recognised from seeing Zatanna talk about Constantine, and kissed him, sweet and tender and without expectation.

“There’s a million men in the world I could go to if I wanted a quick fuck,” she told him, fondly. “I don’t want them Bruce, I don’t just want a fuck, I want _you_ , and if that means no sex, well, you’d be amazed at what you can buy if you know the right websites. I’ve always been good at taking care of myself.” And she’d winked at him, and he’d blushed like he wasn’t the most notorious playboy in Gotham, and she’d kissed him again, and he’d thought that maybe it could work.

“You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want,” Alfred says, smiling at him. “Me and my old bones can finish this. You go be with your young lady.”

But Bruce’s life is built on quiet moments in kitchens, with Alfred, and a dishtowel, and the smell of artificial lemon, so he just takes the bowl from Alfred’s hand and begins drying as the voices from the living room begin the countdown to the new year.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”

Bruce finds a space on the table for the dry plate, set it down and picks up a glass from the drying rack.

“Four, three, two…”

Alfred rinses off the roasting tin from dinner and balances it expertly on top of the plates and upturned bowls on the draining board.

“One…”

 **Bang**.

Bruce’s head jerks up, trying to place the sudden unexpected noise.

He hurries out into the hall, still holding a dishtowel in one hand, a wet mug in the other.

The others have crowded out from the living room, standing in a huddle in the hall staring at the great wooden doors on the Tower.

**Bang Bang Bang.**

Someone’s knocking on the door, on a door that opens into an unreal magical vortex.

Bruce and Constantine exchange glances, and then Doctor Fate steps up, goes to open the door, and Bruce drapes the dishtowel over his shoulder so he’s got a hand free to reach for a weapon.

Fate unbars the door, lifts the latch, lets the door fall slowly open.

On the other side, standing on nothing, is a tall young man, with close cropped dark hair and a worried expression. In one hand he’s holding a red helmet, sleek and futuristic, while his other arm supports a younger man who leans heavily against him, head lolling and eyes unfocussed and unseeing.

Bruce is frozen, unable to move, to speak, just staring at his lost sons, real and alive and _here_.

“Hey B,” Jason says, with something like his old smirk. “Gonna invite us in?”

Bruce is going to say something, or maybe cry, but then Constantine appears out of nowhere. He grabs Bruce by the ears, and pulls him forward to plant a ridiculous smacking kiss on Bruce’s lips.

Jason’s smirk widens. “You know if this is a bad time, we could just come back later?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this my darlings! Next chapter, find out what's wrong with Tim.


	3. Chapter Two: The Prodigal Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce finds out where his boys have been all this time, and Jason gets some terrible news.

To Jason’s surprise it’s actually Harley Quinn that moves first (why is she even here?), rushing over to help support Tim’s weight and pulling them both inside the tower.

“What wrong with him?” is her first question. “How long has he been unconscious?”

“He was in Metropolis,” Jason says, sighing in relief when the blond man in the half undone tie comes over to take Tim from him, and shaking out his stiff shoulder. Baby Bird is surprisingly heavy for someone who’s eaten nothing but tinned soup for three years. “We both were. We managed to get out. I got some burns, and I was sick as a dog for a few days, but I was okay. No cancer yet. T… Red Robin wasn’t so lucky.” He still doesn’t know who all these people are, and he certainly doesn’t trust them, so it’s codenames only until he can get Bruce and Alfred alone. “The Titans got underground, deep as they could, but Robin and Raven were the only survivors. When I found him, he was under Wondergirl’s body. I think maybe her powers helped shield him, at least a bit. He was in a bad way. I fixed him up best I could, but it was nearly a year before he woke up, and he hasn’t been conscious for more than half an hour at a time since.” He looks at Bruce, still staring at him with silent shock, suddenly wishing desperately he still had that blind faith in the man that had carried him through his teens. “Can you help him?”

“We’ll do our best,” Harley says firmly. “Come on Constantine, make yourself useful. We’ll take him to one of the bedrooms, he’s stable enough.”

Bruce still hasn’t said anything, but he steps forward now, picks Tim up as though he weighs nothing, cradling him as tenderly as a baby, and Jason relaxes, just a tiny bit, because he has no idea what’s going on here, why Harley Quinn is free, or who most of the others are, or why there’s a fucking _chimp_ in a _hat_ , but he trusts that Bruce will watch over Tim.

Harley leads the way, Bruce following with Tim’s unconscious body in his arms, then Jason. He hears more footsteps behind him, thinks Alfred, and the blond man called Constantine, and maybe some of the others too, are following, but that doesn’t matter. Even seeing Alfred again doesn’t matter when weighed against his duty to protect Tim.

He’s got the boy this far, despite everything, despite Tim being in a coma for a year, despite Jason having to steal from hospitals to keep him alive and off Superman’s radar. Despite his own radiation sickness which still makes eating a challenge. Despite Tim’s intermittent consciousness and the nightmares and the year living underground feeling the walls closing in on him. He didn’t go through all that just to let Harley fucking Quinn finish what Joker started.

He still doesn’t know what kind of a welcome to expect. Tim said Bruce had invited him, had wanted him to come, but Jason can’t trust that, not really. He likes the kid, but Tim is sly when he needs to be, and he wouldn’t put it past him to lie just to get Jason somewhere safe.

Bruce carries Tim up a confusingly twisty staircase and along a hallway into a bedroom. He lays him on the bed carefully, pausing to tenderly smooth the hair from Tim’s forehead, before he steps back, allows Harley Quinn to begin examining Tim. Jason nearly says something, nearly steps in to stop her, but she’s got a medical degree, of sorts, and she’s always been pretty harmless around kids. (Tim isn’t a kid, not really, but right now he looks it, pale and delicate and far to fucking thin, the oversized bed dwarfing him.)

To Jason’s surprise Bruce doesn’t hover at the bedside, watching Harley’s every move, but rather strides over to pull Jason into a bone crushing hug, and Jason knows he shouldn’t allow it, knows consciously at least that he’s still angry at Bruce, but he’s so tired, and it’s been so long, and right now his rage seems such a small unimportant thing compared to the warmth and safety of Bruce’s arms.

He smells the same, some kind of medicinal smell layered over the rubber and lycra and man that makes up Bruce’s distinctive scent.

After a moment, not nearly long enough, Bruce pulls away, and Alfred takes his place, wrapping Jason up in his embrace and sobbing unashamedly into his shoulder. It’s a shock, to have been missed like this, to be welcomed like this, and whatever his quarrels with Bruce Jason never had any reason to resent Alfred, so he hugs back without reserve.

Eventually Alfred pulls back, holds Jason at arms length while he examines him, cataloguing the new scars he’s acquired, and the dark circles under his eyes.

Bruce is crying, he realises. He’s never seen the man cry, hadn’t know he even _could_ cry, but he’s sobbing now, the tears gathering in the cowl’s eyes. With a disgusted noise, Bruce pulls it off, lets it hang down his back, and Jason remembers that his identity is known now, exposed to the world by Superman’s regime. For the first time, Bruce has nothing to hide.

“We thought you were dead,” Bruce says at last. He hasn’t moved to hug him again, is keeping his distance and respecting Jason’s personal space, but his hands twitch like it’s costing him to do it. “There were no sightings, not one…”

Jason does his best to look offended, even though he mostly wants to burst into tears of his own. “You trained me, B, remember? You and Talia. I’m not an amateur. We stayed away from people to begin with, kept to ourselves.” (Himself, because Tim had been comatose, unable to answer, and eventually Jason had mostly stopped talking to him, had stopped talking at all, so fucking lonely it hurt). “We’ve been staying with some rogue metas this last year. Call themselves The Movement. They’re good kids.”

“How did you get here?” Alfred asks. “How did you find us?”

“Tim got the message you sent,” Jason explains. “He and some of the Movement guys did some research, found this chick Pandora. She sent us here.”

“Pandora helped you?”the blond man, Constantine, asks, sounding surprised, and Jason jumps. He’d forgotten the others were here, hovering around the door listening with interest. “I thought she was staying neutral.”

“She is, I think. This was… I don’t know. Burden, Christopher, persuaded her. He’s got this whole puppy dog thing, women seem to like it.”

“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Bruce says, still staring at Jason like he wants to hug him. Right now Jason would let him, if he tried, but he doesn’t want to set a bad precedent by initiating a hug himself. “We knew Tim was alive, since Christmas and the message, but you… God I was so worried Jason.”

It’s a surprise, but not a bad one, to know Bruce had worried about him. There’s only one member of the Batfamily who ever usually worries about him, and he’s noticeably absent. “Hey, where’s Dick?”

Bruce’s face goes white, all the blood draining from it, and Alfred lays a hand on Jason’s shoulder in a way that’s probably supposed to be reassuring but instead just tells him there’s bad news coming.

“Dick’s… he died. He… Damian pushed him. He didn’t mean it. But Dick hit his head, and…”

Jason just stares at Bruce’s face, desperately searching for the lie, the con, the sign that this is some scheme and Dick is really in deep cover, or in another dimension, or something. But all he sees is grief, desperate and real and more emotion than he thought Bruce could feel, and Jason finds himself sinking to his knees, his legs unable to support his weight.

He knew things would be different, had heard about Ollie’s death, and Dinah, and Damian switching sides, but this… Dick had been his one real link to the family, the big brother he could rely on, even when they were trying to kill one another, even when Jason was half mad and Dick thought he was another of Joker’s pranks. Dick, bright laughing affectionate Dick, had been a constant.

“Superman didn’t broadcast it,” Bruce is saying, somewhere distant. “Didn’t want the bad press, not back then when he was still loved, and anyway, he wanted to protect Damian from…”

“Shut up,” Jason forces out, and then louder, “Shut up shut up SHUT UP! You let Dick die?! You let Dick get murdered?! By Talia’s hellspawn brat?!” He’s shouting now, the mad rage that’s always lurking at the back of his mind rising up, clouding his vision, filling his brain. “He trusted you! After everything, Dick still fucking trusted you, and YOU LET HIM DIE?! LIKE YOU DID ME?” He’s shaking, but at some point he must have got to his feet because he’s eye to eye with Bruce, looking straight into Bruce’s vivid blue eyes, so filled with pain and heartbreak at the madness drains out of Jason in a moment, leaving only despair. “Like you did me.”

Bruce grabs Jason, pulls him into a too tight hug, strokes his hair and whispers, over and over, “I couldn’t stop it Jason. I couldn’t stop it. I just… I couldn’t stop it…” until Alfred comes over and puts his arms around both of them, and shushes Bruce and the three of them cry together, mourning the happy brilliant man who’d been the best of them.

The moment is broken by Harley, who asks, “You want to good news or the bad news?” in something that’s probably meant to be her familiar bright tones but comes out quiet and a little brittle.

“Both,” Bruce growls, turning to face her, one arm still wrapped tightly around Jason’s shoulders.

“Well, the good news is, he’s alive,” Harley says, looking a little embarrassed. “Bad news is I don’t know where to begin with treating him. I’m sorry Batsy, I can tell you the kid’s malnourished and dehydrated, but nuclear fallout isn’t my area. You need a real doctor, and a good one, ASAP.”

“Leslie,” Bruce says, glancing at Alfred as though for confirmation. “Leslie will come, and she’ll keep it secret. I didn’t want to involve her, not before, but now…”

“Tell us where to find her,” Constantine says. “We can have her here in an hour at the most.”

Alfred gives the man Doctor Thompkins’ home address, as well the address of the hospital and the location of her office, and he and a woman Jason realises is Zatanna, but much more casually dressed than he’s used to seeing her, leave together, already discussing cloaking spells and teleportation and a whole lot of magic shit Jason doesn’t understand. He’s glad Zatanna’s here. Constantine looks untrustworthy, a conman’s open face. Zee he at least knows, if not well, and trusts. She’s Justice League but she chose the right side. For now, that’s enough.

“Well while we wait, we can at least make the kid comfortable,” Harley says firmly. Jason’s never seen this side of her before, calm and competent, every bit the medical professional, and wonders if this was what she was like before Joker. Whether she’d faced down Two-Face and Croc and the rest with this same calm self-assurance, only to fall victim to the Joker like so many before her.

“I brought all the medical supplies I could find,” a familiar voice behind him says, and Jason turns to see Selina Kyle, dressed in civies, her arms full of first aid kits and bags in that unmistakable hospital green. “What do you need?”

“Drip. Rehydration fluids. Clean catheter bag. Some pyjamas as close to the kid’s size as you can find, soft fabric.”

Selina dumps what she’s carrying onto a chair, rummages until she finds the drip bag, catheter and packet of rehydration fluid, and then disappears again, presumably in search of pyjamas.

“Alfred, I need a pint of cold water,” Harley says, shaking out the drip bag and examining it. “And something to act as an IV stand. This is all going to have to be pretty improvised.”

“I’ll see what I can find, Miss Quinn,” Alfred says, polite as if he were talking to a real doctor rather than a notorious supervillain.

He squeezes Jason’s shoulder on his way out of the room, which Jason chooses to interpret as reassurance and a promise that Tim will get the best care.

“Is that man going to die?” a voice asks behind Jason a moment later, nearly giving him a fucking heart attack because this is supposed to be a fucking secret rebel base. There should definitely not be any little girls here.

“He’ll be okay, Rosie,” Harley says, coming over and crouching in front of the little girl. The kid has dark dreadlocks, and brown skin, and doesn’t look like she could be related to anyone Jason as seen at the tower so far. “Zee and your dad have gone to fetch a doctor. He’s sick right now, but the doctor will make him all better.”

The kid, Constantine’s kid apparently, though Jason can’t see any family resemblance, nods.

“You want to meet our new guests?” Harley asks. The kid nods again, and Harley stands, taking her hand. “This is…” She gives Jason a significant look, and he realises she’s expecting a name, a real name. He freezes, but then Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder, heavy and reassuring, and Jason thinks that while he might not like Bruce much, the old bastard is paranoid as hell. If he thinks these people are on his side, they probably are.

“I’m Jason,” Jason says. “That’s Tim.”

“He looks kinda like you. Is he your brother, or your boyfriend?” the kids asks, and Harley covers her mouth with her hand to hide a snort of laughter.

“Brother,” Jason says quickly. “Sort of brother, anyway.” He doesn’t know why everyone keeps assuming him and Tim are a couple. (Probably because Jason’s crush is embarrassingly fucking obvious and Tim is asleep too much for people to figure out that it’s one sided).

“Oh. It’s okay if he’s your boyfriend you know,” the girl says, looking at him with pursed lips that suggest she doesn’t believe a word he says. “My dad says anyone can date anyone they like, as long as everybody’s happy.”

“He’s my brother,” Jason says, a little more firmly than is probably necessary. “Batman is our dad.” He keeps his eyes on the kid as he says it, not daring to turn round and see Bruce’s expression, so he gets the watch as the kid gives Bruce a long hard stare, like she doesn’t think much of his parenting, and Jason can’t help smiling. God today has been an emotional fucking rollercoaster. What a way to start the new year.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next time for the first appearance of Leslie Thompkins, and, hopefully, Tim's first dialogue of the series!


	4. Chapter Three: Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leslie gets some unexpected visitors and Tim finally wakes up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a lot of time researching radiation sickness for this chapter, but neither Tim's treatment or symptoms are exactly standard. You can thank Cassie for that.
> 
> There's probably only going to be a couple more chapters in this story, but don't worry, I'm already planning the next in the series, which I think will be primarily focussed on Harley and Selina.

Leslie stares blankly at the paperwork in front of her. She’d been about to write something, she’s sure of it, but when she searches her memory she comes up blank on what it was.

The form is a request for new stationary. Has she run out of anything? She can’t remember. She’s sure the late nights didn’t used to get to her like this when she was a junior doctor. But she’s not the girl she was, and as she always says, better old than the alternative.

A glance at her computer screen tells her it’s quarter to one. Maybe she’s not getting as old as she thought. Even as a young woman she’d have been tired by a… she counts up on her fingers. Thirteen hour shift.

Her eyes ache from too long staring at the glaring white of the paper. She takes of her glasses and rubs her forehead. Maybe she should call it a night, no doubt whatever it was she wanted can wait till tomorrow, and maybe by then she’ll have remembered what it actually was.

Sighing, she puts her glasses back on, checks her calendar for the next couple of days (a whole day off, and then she’s on call, which is as restful as her life ever gets) and swaps her white coat for a cardigan.

She’s just shutting down her computer (a process that takes some time since she can’t work out whether or not she should let it install the updates it keeps telling her about or wait for IT to do it) when there’s a knock on the door.

She huffs out quiet laughter. So much for calling it a night. It’s probably someone telling her they need her to cover a shift in the ER, or one of the numerous difficult patients who still insist they’ll only see her, even though she only sees very specialist cases these days, most of her time taken with running the place.

“Come in.”

The person that opens the door isn’t any of the nurses from the ER, or anyone she knows from the admin department. It’s a worried looking woman, long dark hair and plum coloured lipstick, and behind her a blond man in a trench coat wearing an expression she can only describe as studied indifference.

“Can I help you? I was just about to go home for the night.”

“Oh, well, sorry then. But, er, Batman, Bruce, sent us. He needs your help.”

That brings her up short. Of all the things she’d expected the woman to say, that was not one of them. “Bruce? Is he alright?!”

“He’s okay,” the woman says. “It’s his son. Red Robin? He was in Metropolis, when… He’s alive, but unconscious. Some sort of radiation sickness. Harley Quinn’s looking after him…”

While the woman speaks Leslie has been gathering what she needed, packing up the bag she used to keep for the times when Gotham was hit by one of its perpetual emergency and she was needed out in the streets for triage, but that makes her pause. “Harley Quinn?!”

“She’s a psychiatrist, she’s had medical training. It’s not her field, but she knows the basics, and she’s the closest we’ve got to a real doctor.”

It had been the woman’s morals rather than her qualifications that had surprised her, but Leslie doesn’t say so now. This ridiculous war is forging some strange allegiances, like war always does. Instead she asks, “What’s his condition? I need to know what to bring.”

“Intermittent consciousness, but he’s never awake for more than half an hour at a time. Skin’s sallow, and he didn’t weigh enough for his size, but no other immediately visible injuries,” the man says, and when his companion quirks an eyebrow at him he grins and says, “seen enough mates through overdoses in the old days, I’ve got an idea what the paramedics always want to know.”

“That’s a good starting point young man,” Leslie tells him. “I hope you’re sensible enough to keep away from drugs these days.”

The man laughs. “Scouts honour. Black magic and fags only, that’s me.”

She’s not sure if he’s serious about the magic. She knows there are plenty of magic users out there, but she’s never had much to do with them. They tend to do their own medical care.

“You say he was actually in Metropolis? Why isn’t he dead?”

It’s the woman who answers this time. “He was with his team. Metas. We think one of them… shielded him, or absorbed some of the radiation, or something. He was in a coma for about a year afterwards though.”

“Well we’ll just have to hope he hasn’t got long term brain damage,” Leslie says, taking her coat from the back of the door. “I’ll need to stop by the pharmacy before we go, pick up a few things I’m likely to need.”

The woman smiles, and the man nods. As they trail their way down to pharmacy they introduce themselves. Zatanna, a former Justice League member, and John Constantine, who describes himself as an occasional dabbler in the dark arts with a wry smile that she takes to mean she doesn’t want to know what he really does.

The Pharmacy are surprised to see her, and even more surprised when she tells them what she needs, but since Metropolis they’ve been keeping Imumax in stock, and the other things are just everyday medicines, painkillers, burn creams, antibiotics and some things to help with the dehydration and likely malnutrition.

“Okay,” she tells her visitors. “I’m ready now.”

“Let's get somewhere out of the way,” John says. “Don’t want some random orderly walking into the teleportation field.”

She raises an eyebrow at that, but she’s lived in Gotham all her life, and this is hardly shaping up to be the strangest house call she’s ever done. After No-Man’s Land, treating men like Victor Zsaz without anything that could reasonably be called a sterile environment or real medication, even being magically transported to treat an irradiated superhero doesn’t seem especially odd.

The three of them find a quiet corner of the corridor, and after glancing both ways to check they’re alone, Zatanna puts a hand on each of their shoulders and intones, “Rewot fo Etaf,” and the world dissolves into light.

After a few dizzying moments, the light begins to fade, resolving itself into a grand entrance hall, bare stone floor and ceilings, and the most elaborate staircase she’s ever seen, twisting in ways that make her eyes hurt to look at.

“They’re upstairs,” Zatanna says, and Leslie begins up the stairs, not waiting for a guide. If there’s one thing she’s learnt in her long life it’s how to spot the sickroom when everyone’s too busy to show you.

That old instinct guides her to the last door on the right on the corridor. She pushes it all the way open, to reveal a thin young man, his eyes sunk back into his head from malnutrition and dehydration, lying tucked into an enormous bed. Someone’s hooked up a drip, and the boy appears to be asleep. He looks so small and frail it’s a moment before she recognises him as Tim Drake, the third of Bruce’s adopted sons.

In a chair beside the bed sits Bruce, cowl pushed back to reveal the lines of worry and exhaustion etched into his handsome face, Tim’s hand dwarfed in one of his. Alfred it sitting on the edge of the bed, and a dark man she recognises as Jason Todd paces back and forth at the end of the bed.

“What’s in the drip?” she asks, because she doesn’t believe in delaying when she’s got patients to treat. She can catch up with Bruce and Alfred later.

“Rehydration fluid,” Bruce says at once. “Harley rigged it up, said he was dehydrated.”

“She’s quite right. Nice to see her time with Joker didn’t make her forget _all_ her training.”

She comes over to examine Tim, though she does press a hand to Bruce’s shoulder in passing. She’s missed the stubborn fool.

She examines her patient, then asks questions about his condition, which are answered by Jason.

She’s impressed with him. He’d always seemed reckless before, but apparently he can be sensible, when it’s someone else’s life on the line. He’d washed the boy as thoroughly as possible, multiple times, after finding him. Burned his clothes, found new ones. His research on the internet had suggested potassium iodine might help flush any ingested radiation, so he’d dosed the boy with that, figuring it couldn’t make things worse. He’d even thought to fit a catheter. All in all he’d done everything that could be done, and a good deal more than could be expected given that he was on the run at the time.

“You’re probably the only reason he’s alive right now,” she tells him, and he looks proud, despite his obvious worry. “I can’t be certain, this is a pretty unique case, but I would think that if he’s made it this far, then a full recovery is probably possible. I’d expect anyone who’d been exposed to something like that to be dead in days. That he’s still here three years later… well it’s certainly hopeful.”

Jason nods, and by the bed Bruce smiles with so much relief it almost breaks her heart. That poor foolish boy, willing to lay his heart on the line again and again, even though life brings him nothing but pain. She won’t ever agree with his decision to take justice into his own hands, and even less with the fact that he allows, encourages, children to fight alongside him, but he’s been through hell and it feels good to be able to bring him some good news.

“I need to wake him if possible,” she tells them. “I need to get his own reading on his condition, and explain the medicines I’m going to proscribe. As I remember, Tim always liked to know exactly what I was giving him.”

Jason laughs softly. “You should have heard him when he first regained consciousness and realised he’d got a whole year of treatment to catch up on,” he says fondly. She wonders if Bruce realises the poor man’s head over heels. Probably not, Bruce was always pretty oblivious about that sort of thing, for all he pretended otherwise.

Bruce goes to wake Tim, but is stopped by a sharp look from Jason, and to her surprised he backs off, lets Jason wrap and arm around Tim, lifting him slightly and talking to him softly until the boy’s eyelids flutter. There’s a story there, and perhaps one day Bruce will explain, but now isn’t the moment.

The boy struggles vaguely for a moment, then stills, eyes slowly opening. “Jace? Where are we?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The strangest thing about being sick is how he wakes up differently. He used to wake up instantly, no in between from dreams to wakefulness, and then he’d lie for a second, still with his eyes closed, just taking his bearings. It was something he’d trained himself to do, a useful technique in event of kidnappings and one which had saved his life more than once.

Since Metropolis (he doesn’t remember it, not clearly, but Jason has explained what happened, in disjointed half hour conversations in the brief periods he was awake) he wakes slowly, reality swimming back into focus gradually, and he’s always  ridiculously grateful when he finds Jason there waiting for him, an anchor in the chaos of his mind.

This time, the first thing he becomes aware of, after the reassuring strength of Jason’s arm round his shoulder, is that the bed he’s lying on is new. It’s not his camp bed in the Sweatshop, and it’s not any of the abandoned mattresses on the floor from the half remembered months before that. This is big, and soft, and luxurious, like his bed at the manor, except that it smells wrong.

“Jace?” he murmurs, the words thick and difficult on his tongue. “Where are we?”

“With Bruce,” Jason says from somewhere near his ear. “We found him, just like you planned.”

It takes a moment, but the memories come back to him, a ghostly image of Bruce, standing there like Princess Leia, telling him to come home. Ven helping him find Pandora. Sending Jason off and Mouse helping him dress so that he’d be ready if she agreed. Falling asleep again, fully dressed, listening to Mouse talking quietly to his rats.

“We did it?” he asks, and from somewhere nearby Bruce’s deep voice answers, “You did it.”

He forces himself to open his eyes, wincing as the sudden brightness makes his ever present headache throb, tired eyes searching out Bruce’s familiar form.

He’s there, real and solid, sitting beside the bed, wearing one of the older less armoured versions of the Batsuit, cowl pushed back and hair sticking up like he’d been worried. He never could keep his hands out of his hair when he was really worried.

“Hey Bruce,” Tim manages, then has to stop to cough. The cough is a recent development, something picked up in the Sweatshop, his immune system to weak to combat the germ stew in the air of what amounted to an underground refugee camp

“Good to see you Tim,” Bruce says, reaching out to take Tim’s hand. He squeezes too tightly, but Tim remembers the Christmas message, remembers Bruce’s tears, and doesn’t say anything.

“You’ve been missed Master Tim,” Alfred says, and Tim looks down to find him seated on at the foot of the bed, watching him with concerned affection.

“Tim,” a woman’s voice says, and there’s Doctor Thompkins, stethoscope around her neck, looking professional and motherly and infinitely reassuring. “I know you’ve missed everyone, but I don’t know how long you’ll stay conscious and it’s important that I get an idea of what’s wrong with you, okay?”

Tim nods.

“Do you want me to send these ridiculous boys out?” she asks, nodding to Bruce and Jason, “Or are you okay with me doing this with them here.”

“I want them here,” Tim says quickly, leaning slightly into Jason and tightening his grip on Bruce’s hand. After so long, he still doesn’t entirely trust that Bruce’s presence isn’t a dream and he wants to enjoy it as long as possible. And Jason has become his link to reality, the one thing that’s kept him going thought all the pain and confusion. The idea of being parted from him, even for just one of these periods of wakefulness, is terrifying.

“Alright then. First I need to you tell me in your own words how you’re feeling. Can you do that?”

“Nauseous, but just a bit. I always am. My head’s been hurting since I woke up. Since I first woke up I mean. So about a… year and a half?” He looks to Jason, who nods confirmation. “My joints ache, and I’m exhausted even when I’m only awake an hour a day. The burn scars from the bomb, they hurt a bit. Not badly, they’re healed okay mostly, they’re just stiff, and kinda sensitive. Probably from lying on them all the time. I’ve been coughing a lot recently. Some virus or something I picked up.”

Leslie nods, obviously mentally noting this all down. “That’s about what I expected. I’ve brought some meds with me, and Harley’s already taken care of one of the biggest problems with that drip.” She rummages in her bag, pulls out two boxes of pills. “These are just the basics, painkillers and penicillin. Penicillin twice a day for a week. Painkillers when you need them, _don’t_ exceed the maximum dosage. I know what you Waynes are like.” Tim laughs softly, both at her fierceness and at the family being referred to so scathingly as ‘you Waynes’.

A large white plastic tub is set on the bed beside the pill boxes. “Cream for your burns. Apply it once a day, it should ease the stiffness a bit.”

The next thing out of the bag is a small glass vial and a needle. “This is a G-CSF. It will stimulate white blood cell production and help to repair your bone marrow which will have been damaged by the exposure to radiation. That should get your immune system working properly again.” Tim nods, relieved beyond words that she’s taking the time to actually _explain_ all this. He trusts Doctor Thompkins completely, but taking pills or getting injections when he doesn’t know what they are wigs him the hell out, always has. His inner control freak hates it. Doctor Thompkins simple clear explanations keep him calm, even as she injects him with the first dose of the G-CSF. When she’s done she explains to Bruce and Jason how to administer it, the dosages and frequency, and Tim only half registers her words, but it’s okay because he trusts Jason to look after him.

“The last thing,” Doctor Thompkins says, addressing him again, “is dietary supplements. You’re underweight and pretty severely malnourished, though not as badly as I’d been expecting. I’ve brought you a good multivitamin, since I didn’t know if Bruce would be able to get one for you, plus additional iron supplements and some packets of build-up milkshakes. They’re not the nicest thing in the world, but they’ll help get your body back in working order.”

She pushes Bruce gently out of the way so she can lean in and kiss his cheek. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you are extremely lucky,” she tells him seriously. “I’ll come back in a couple of days, check up on you, but for now I think I should leave you to be reunited with your family.”

Bruce catches her hand on her way out, pulls her into a careful hug. She laughs, and pats his cheek, and tells him he’s a ridiculous boy and she’s missed him. Then just as she gets to the door, she pauses, turns back and says with a grin, “When I come back, Bruce, we’re having a talk about your back, and don’t even try to get out of it.”

Bruce smiles, and nods, and Tim doesn’t believe for a second that he actually means to go along with it. He’s spent too much of his life watching Bruce get injured. Trying to get him to see a doctor willingly is like trying to bathe a cat. A very strong, heavily armed cat.

When she’s gone there’s a murmur of voices outside, presumably whoever brought her here arranging to take her home, and Tim allows himself to relax. Jason is still holding him, and it’s comforting in its familiarity, the firmness of Jason’s chest against his shoulder, an arm warm and reassuring, supporting him.

There’s this strained moment, where everyone wants to say something but no one knows what, and then Jason says, “Dick’s dead.”

Tim nods. “I thought he might be. He was never in the news, and he’s not the most wanted list.”

Bruce squeezes his hand, and Tim realises with a jolt he’s been holding it all this time and Tim had somehow forgotten. “I thought I’d lost you too,” Bruce says quietly. “You and Jason.”

Tim laughs. “You should know by now Bruce, you don’t get rid of me that easily. I mean look at this! You ran away to the other end of reality itself, to a magical tower that can only be accessed by people granted permission by the God of Fate, and I still found you.”

“God I missed you,” Bruce says, and half climbs onto the bed so he can pulls Tim into a hug. Jason quickly withdraws, probably to avoid being crushed, and Tim immediately feels the loss of his touch, but he’s missed Bruce too, so he hugs him back, as hard as he’s able with his whole body so weak, and the Alfred wants a hug as well, and Tim is smiling so hard it feels like the whole top of his head is going to pop off.

He’s been so scared, for so long, but now he’s back where he belongs, with his family, and the future is finally looking brighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time ever writing Tim, so any comments would be appreciated!


	5. Chapter Four: Fried Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason deals with some bad memories and Tim makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merlin the Magical Mouse is from my story of the same name. It's a toy made by John and Zatanna for Rose, because if you're magical why wouldn't you make your kid awesome magical toys?
> 
> Bobo is Detective Chimp's real name. Understandably he doesn't use it much. And yes, he really is a zombie at this point in Injustice, though that isn't made clear until issue #18, which didn't happen in this continuity.
> 
> The sausages described are Lincolnshire sausages, though the further north in the UK you go, the grainier the texture of the sausages. They were my dad's favourites, but I've never much liked the texture. And according to British people I know who've been the states, American bacon is sickly sweet, so I figured it made sense that Americans would think the opposite. Also battered deep fried Mars bars and pizza are both real things. The Glaswegians will deep fry anything.
> 
> Jason's PTSD is the subject of part of this chapter. Just an FYI for people who might find that hard to read.

Jason jerks awake, completely certain that something’s wrong. It takes him a horrible moment of panic to work out what it is. He’s in a strange bed.

It’s one of the many leftovers of the Lazarus pit, but he has a horror of waking up somewhere unexpected. That moment of coming to and finding Talia staring down at him forever etched into his mind. He’s found ways to cope with that, things he can do to let himself know he’s safe even with moving safehouses every few days. Expensive cotton sheets, the kind they’d had at the manor, the kind that he’s lying in now, but more importantly, the smell of lavender.

Everywhere he goes, he always scents the pillow with lavender oil before he sleeps, familiar and comforting, and fucking girly too but he ignores that, so that that when he wakes up he’ll know he’s somewhere safe. That he hasn’t been killed or kidnapped in the night. Until now it’s mostly just been useful as a reassurance, a way of calming himself, but now the clean smell of freshly washed sheets tells him he’s somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

His thinking brain is mostly still offline, drowsy (drugs maybe, had he been drugged?) but he doesn’t need to be fully awake to operate, instinct compelling him to find his jacket (on the floor at the end of the bed, what kidnapper was stupid enough to let him keep it?) but the gun he keeps in the inside pocket is gone, and so’s his holster, and the knife from his boots, and mini explosive charges he keeps in his belt. Maybe whoever took him wasn’t so stupid after all.

There’s a chair beside his bed and with a couple of moment’s effort he’s able to break of one of the legs. It’s not an ideal weapon but he’s killed people with less.

The door to his room is unlocked, which surprises him, and he creeps out into a corridor, silent on socked feet. The air is cool on his bare arms, and the corridor looks unlived in, bare floorboards and stone walls. The corridor has many doors, but Jason doesn’t try any of them, instead heading towards the staircase he can see at the end.

The staircase curls oddly, something not quite right about the angles that makes him test it with first his chair leg, and then a foot, before he actually steps onto it. It seems real enough, and while it curves in a stomach churningly Escher-esque way, it takes him down to the bottom.

He steps of the last step into a large entrance hall or foyer, the walls the same plain dressed stone, with stone slabs on the floor, and a pair of huge double doors.

He has this nagging sensation that he’s forgetting something, something important. Or is it someone? He has this sense that he should have someone with him, but he dismisses that thought. Getting out is all that matters.

The bar is barred but not locked, and Jason gets it open quickly. He hauls on one of the great wooden doors, and it swings inwards easily. He steps out of the way, and then freezes.

On the other side of the door is… nothing. This great blue swirling vortex, as far as the eye can see.

He jumps back, raising his chair leg as though it’s somehow going to protect him from whatever that is outside.

“You okay kid?” a voice behind him says, and he swings the chair leg automatically, his body reacting to a perceived threat without involving his mind.

A large leathery hand catches the weapon in midair, stopping it dead without apparent effort, and Jason finds himself just standing there, frozen in the act of violence, staring down at a chimp. It’s wearing one of those Sherlock Holmes hats, and a tweed jacket. It looks concerned.

“You alright?” it asks.

“You’re a monkey. A talking monkey. In a hat,” Jason says slowly, trying to fit this fact into the available space in his brain and failing. “Why are you wearing a hat?”

“It’s a nice hat,” the chimp replies, with something that, on someone with less impressive arms, would probably be called a shrug. “Also it tends to distract people. They get so fixated on the hat that they don’t notice me doing things like… this!” The chimp jerks the chair leg out of Jason’s hand with remarkable strength, and hits him on the backs of the knees with it, toppling him to the ground. He lands on his ass, looking up at the chimp’s amused face.

“I don’t like being called a monkey,” it tells him, and extends a hand. “Also, I’m a member of MENSA. Do you want some breakfast?”

Memories are beginning to trickle in through the haze he’s been operating in. He’s seen this chimp before. Somewhere recently… “I’m… at Batman’s HQ?” he asks, still not quite awake enough to trust his own memories.

“That’s right kid. You arrive around midnight last night. It’s now ten am, January 1st. You’re up earlier than I expected.”

Jason nods, the information matching up reassuringly with his own memories. His head aches. “We’re in the tower of Fate. My… Robin, is asleep upstairs. A doctor came. And you’re a MENSA chimp in a hat.”

The chimp looks amused. “I’m a zombie too, if that helps at all,” it says. “Come on, the kitchen’s this way. You must be hungry.”

The kitchen is a large old fashioned room, with a cast iron range and a large oak table. It smells of coal smoke, and bacon, and tobacco. That last is explained by a man Jason has a vague feeling he met last night, who’s standing over the stove frying something and smoking a cigarette. A little girl with dreadlocks is sitting at the kitchen table, drawing.

“Another for breakfast, Mr Constantine,” the chimp says, pushing Jason gently towards the table. “Is there coffee?”

“In the pot.”

“And cigarettes?”

The man sighs. “I know you can’t exactly nip to the corner shop, given that you’re a zombie talking chimp on the run from the government, but you can’t keep stealing my fags,” he says, but he hands one over all the same, and when the chimp gestures, lights it with a click of his fingers. Jason mentally adds the label ‘magic user’ to the man’s image in his mind.

The chimp brings Jason a cup of coffee, knuckling over one handed to put it on the table in front of him, then goes back for its own cup.

The little girl is drinking orange juice.

Jason stares at the little girl, and after a moment the little girl lifts her head and stares back. She gives him an assessing sort of gaze, intelligent and judgemental, and then says, “Do you want to do drawing with me.”

For a moment Jason doesn’t know how to respond to the unexpected offer. Less than five minutes ago he was certain he’d been kidnapped, now he’s apparently about to have breakfast with a magician, a small child and a talking chimp. In a hat.

“I’m not very good at drawing,” he says at last.

The girl smiles at him. “That’s okay, you don’t have to be good, just enjoy yourself. That’s what my kindergarten teacher said.”

“What are you drawing?” Jason asks, mostly to distract her from giving him paper and pencils.

She holds up her picture, indicating the various things she’s drawn. “That’s Dad and Zee holding hands,” she says, pointing to two humanoid figures. “And that’s a dog. And that’s some flowers. And that’s a sigil for banishing demons.”

The man at the stove wanders over and peers at the picture. “Very nice love, but you got the fourth rune a bit wrong.” He picks up a pencil and doodles something in the corner of her drawing. “Fehu goes like this, see?”

She studies what he’s drawn, then carefully corrects her drawing. “Like that?”

“Perfect. Though you know I don’t like you learning this stuff,” he adds, apparently as an afterthought. “It’s dangerous.”

“Zee says it’s okay as long as it’s just drawing,” the little girl says firmly, and the man shrugs and goes back to his frying pan. Whoever Zee is, her word is apparently law.

Jason takes a sip of his coffee. It’s too hot, but it’s also rich and bitter. He recognises the expensive beans Bruce likes.

“You like mushrooms new kid?” the man at the stove asks, and after a moment of expectant silence, Jason realises he’d been addressing him.

“Sure.”

“Cool. Rose, clear up your drawings, okay? Breakfast’s ready.”

The girl, Rose, gathers her paper into a stack and carefully lays them and the handful of crayons on the dresser out of the way.

The man sets a plate in front of Jason, and another in front of Rose, and brings his own across to sit in the seat opposite Jason.

“Full English,” the man says, indicating the plates. “Breakfast of kings, and the only thing that hits the spot after late night drunken magic.” He snorts. “God, I’m getting old. A few of Selina’s cocktails, teleport half a dimension and in bed by two, and I feel like I’ve been run over by a bloody lorry.”

Jason pokes at the food with a fork. He can’t remember the last time he had a cooked breakfast like this. Alfred used to make them sometimes, when he thought they needed a pick-me-up, but breakfast had been a pretty rare thing in the manor. Late nights crime-fighting didn’t make for early risers, and on days when Jason had school he’d stay in bed until the last possible second, and Alfred, in his understanding way, would make him toast, or a bagel, something he could eat in the car.

This breakfast looks both greasier and a good deal more burnt than the ones Jason remembers from his teens. It also includes a slice of what he assumes must be fried bread. It’s something he’s heard of, but never actually eaten before.

“Unhealthiest food known to man,” the magician says, grinning at him. “Bar deep fried mars bars. Or maybe deep fried pizza. Either way, it’s bad for you.”

Jason cutes off a tiny corner of the bread and tastes it. It’s surprisingly nice, crispy and oily, flavoured with the bacon fat. “Not bad,” he offers, and the man nods, as though there’d never been any doubt.

“I’m Jason by the way,” Jason says, because one thing he definitely remembers from last night is giving Harley fucking Quinn his name, so trying to maintain a codename just seems ridiculous.

“John Constantine,” the man answers. “This is Rose.”

“Hello,” Rose says. “After breakfast, we should go and see your brother. I made him a get well card.”

“Brother?” Constantine asks, obviously surprised. Jason can’t help feeling a little self conscious. He’s never called Tim his brother before, even though that’s what they are, by normal standards. He’s never doubted that Dick is, was, his brother, and he knows Tim feels the same, and legally Bruce is father to both of them, so they ought to be brothers. But their family is so much more complicated than that, and a combination at Jason’s mad rage in the early days, and how damn pretty Tim grew up to be, meant that his ties to Tim have always been more those of friendship than family.

All that makes him answer a little more sharply than he’d intended to. “You got a problem with that?!”

“What? Oh, no. I just thought you two were…” he makes a vague gesture with a forkful of fried egg.

“I asked him if they were boyfriends,” Rose says. “But he says they’re brothers and Batman is their dad.”

“Well he should know,” Constantine says, finally actually eating the egg he’s been waving around. “Shame. You’d make a cute couple.”

Rose gives Constantine a hard look, then turns to stare at Jason. “How old are you?”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “22,” he tells her.

Rose relaxes. “Well that’s okay then. Zee says dad isn’t allowed to flirt with anyone under 21. It’s the rules.”

Constantine looks offended. “I wasn’t flirting!”

“I asked Zee what flirting is, and she said it’s what you do every time you open your mouth,” Rose says, as though that settles the matter. Constantine makes an offended sort of noise, but doesn’t argue.

It’s indescribably weird to be part of a family moment like this. He’s never really known how to deal with kids, even when he was one, and his strange life has left him deeply uncomfortable with people including him like this. His first instinct is always to assume it’s some kind of trap. He sinks a little lower in his chair, and takes a huge bite of blood pudding to cover up his discomfort.

Beside him the chimp smokes silently, sipping its coffee.

Overall the breakfast is pretty good. The bacon isn’t sweet or salty enough, that more delicate savoury flavour he remembers from trips to Europe with Bruce, and the eggs are overdone, but the blood pudding is rich and meaty, and the fried bread is surprisingly good. He leaves the sausages on the side of his plate. They’re highly flavoured, herby and rich, but with a strange grainy texture he doesn’t like.

Rose eats hers happily, but leaves her fried tomato.

“You’ve gotta eat your veg,” Constantine tells her.

Rose gives him a serious look. “I ate the mushrooms, and anyway I don’t like tomatoes. And Steve said I didn’t have to eat things I didn’t like, so long as I tried them properly.”

Constantine shrugs. “Sounds reasonable. But have some fruit or something later, yeah? Otherwise you’ll get scurvy.”

Rose laughs. “I’m not going to get scurvy. _Pirates_ get scurvy.”

“Pirates and girls who don’t eat their tomatoes,” Constantine says firmly, stealing the disputed fruit from her plate and eating it himself.

“I’m finished,” Rose announces. “Can I get down now please?”

“Course,” Constantine says, looking surprised. “You don’t need to ask love.”

“Yes I do,” Rose says firmly. She turns to Jason. “Are you finished? We should go and see your brother.”

Jason pushes away his plate. He hadn’t finished, but his stomach is churning the way it always seems to after meals since Metropolis, and anyway seeing Tim takes priority over everything else.

“If he’s asleep, you let him rest,” Constantine says, apparently to both of them. “He’s poorly.”

“I _know_ dad,” Rose says, rolling her eyes. Jason can’t help smiling. This girl is going to be an absolute terror in a few years.

Rose picks up a folded piece of paper from the pile on the dresser, and to Jason’s amusement, tucks a pencil behind her ear. And then she takes his hand.

Jason freezes, staring down at the joined hands, not knowing how to deal with this sign of affection from a relative stranger. Rose doesn’t seem to notice his confusion though, just tugging him from the room, and he stumbles after her.

The staircase is just a confusing at her remembers, but it doesn’t seem to bother Rose, so he takes a breath and follows her. He discovers that if he focuses on something else, it feels like it curves like a normal spiral staircase. It’s only if he looks at it that it becomes incomprehensible.

Rose had let go of his hand while she climbed the stairs, but she takes it again now, steering him down the corridor to Tim’s door.

To Jason’s surprise, Tim’s awake, sitting propped up against a mountain of cushions. He smiles when he sees them, his whole face lighting up with pleasure, and Jason’s heart gives a lurch in his chest. God it’s been so long since he saw Tim smile like that.

“Jay!” He sounds genuinely delighted to see Jason. “I woke up and you weren’t there!”

Jason feels suddenly so guilty he can barely breathe. God, he’d been going to leave the Tower, leave Tim behind…

“He was having breakfast with me and my dad and Mr Bobo,” Rose says sternly. “He can’t always been in your room you know.”

Tim looks shamefaced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… It’s just that you’ve always been there before, and the only time you weren’t was when you had that run in with the police and you didn’t come back for three days.” He shrugs, looking embarrassed. “I worry about you.”

“Well he’s fine,” Rose says, before Jason has a chance to reply. She climbs onto the bed and kneels by Tim’s feet. “I made you a get well card.”

She hands over the inexpertly folded piece of paper and Jason’s breath catches at the look of delight on Tim’s face. “For me?”

“It’s got everyone in the tower on it,” Rose says. “So you’ll know who everyone is.”

“Wow,” Tim says, smiling at her. “You gonna come up here and show me who everyone is?”

Rose scrambles up the bed and settles back against the pillows beside Tim. Jason glances round the room awkwardly, feeling like he’s intruding. Before he can try and leave though, Tim catches his hand, tugs him over. “You have to listen too, Jay,” he says. “You’re new here too.”

Jason can’t help smiling at his severe tone, and he allows himself to be pulled down to perch on the edge of the bed. He’s seen Tim naked more times than he can count, has washed him and dressed him and cared for him, but that was all when Tim was unconscious. Being this close to a waking smiling Tim makes his heart flutter.

“You feeling better Baby Bird?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” Tim tells him earnestly. “Painkillers are the greatest invention of all time, I swear. I can open my eyes without it hurting now, it’s amazing.”

Jason smiles at Tim’s enthusiasm, even as he feels a little guilty for not taking better care of him. He wonders if he’ll be able to get some painkillers of his own without anyone noticing. He hates anyone knowing he’s ill, almost as much as he hates Doctors, but three years is a long time to have a headache, and a few minutes pain free sounds like heaven.

Tim snakes an arm around Jason’s waist, tugs him close so that he can lean against Jason’s chest, (and _God_ it feels nice to be so close to him) and says to Rose, “Come on then, teach us who everyone is.”

Rose grins. “I don’t think you’re really brothers at all,” she says, and then picks up the card.

“This is me,” she says, pointing to a small brown and pink figure in the centre of the page. “And that’s you, and Jason. This is Batman, you already know him though. And Alfred. He’s Batman’s dad.”

Jason and Tim share a smile at that. Out of the mouths of babes…

“This is Mr Bobo,” she says, indicating a black and green figure. “He’s a chimpanzee and he talks. He’s nice. That’s Mr Fate, he never takes his helmet off. He knows lots about magic, but not much about anything else. I don’t think my dad likes him much.”

“Doctor Fate,” Tim corrects gently, but Rose shakes her head, dreadlocks flying.

“Harley says he didn’t go to Doctor school like she did, so he’s just Mister Fate. That’s Harley. She’s sad lots, but she’ll always play with me. She’s my best friend in the tower, apart from dad and Zee.”

It’s beyond strange to hear someone talk so fondly about Harley Quinn. Her body count isn’t anywhere near as high as Joker’s, but it’s certainly not non-existent. She’s done some terrible things, but Rose is obviously fond of her, and from what he remembers of last night, Harley returns the sentiment.

“That’s my dad. I used to live with my mom and Steve, but they died, and he came and found me and brought me here to live. That’s Zatanna. Her name is hard to say, but she doesn’t mind if you call her Zee. They’re married, but don’t sleep in the same room. They do kiss though, when they think no one will see them. Harley says it’s nauseating.” She pronounces the word with a certain relish and points to the last figure on the page. “That’s Selina. I think Batman is her boyfriend. She pretends to be grumpy but she’s nice really.”

She turns the page over. “This is Kate, and Renee, they’re married. And that’s Babs. Her legs don’t work, she has to use a wheelchair. And that’s Jeff. He’s got two daughters, and he did my hair for me once. And that’s Klarion and Teekl. Teekl looks like a cat but dad says he’s really a demon from hell. I don’t think that’s true, but he doesn’t purr like normal cats. They’re on the back because they don’t live here, just visit sometimes.”

Jason glances over at Tim, and can already see him digesting this information, working out the importance and tactical value of each person. Sometimes he reminds him more of Bruce than even Damian had.

“There’s other people here as well,” Rose says. “They’re prisoners. I’m not supposed to know about them. They’re in the basement.”

Jason bursts out laughing, he can’t help himself, there’s something about information being delivered with such seriousness by a small girl in a pink dress that just makes it hilarious.

Tim smiles at him, and then says to Rose, “That was very helpful Rose, thank you. It was very kind of you to make that for me.”

“Oh!” Rose sits up and rummages in her pocket. “I forgot, I brought you something else too!” She pulls out what looks like a crude stone carving of a mouse, but when she strokes it it sits up, looks around it and begins to wash its stone ears. “This is Merlin, he’s magic. He’s not yours to keep, he was my Christmas present, but you can play with him if you like. I had chicken pox once, and had to stay in bed all the time, and it was _really boring_. So you can have Merlin to play with till you’re better.”

Gently she tips the little creature onto the bed. It looks around itself, then scampers up to sit on Tim’s chest and survey him with tiny stone eyes.

Very gently, Tim strokes it, and it nuzzles against his hand.

“You know, the place we were staying before, we had a friend who could talk to rats,” Tim tells her, still stroking the strange little thing. “He had hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Rose’s eyes go very big. “Hundreds and hundreds?” she asks.

Tim nods confirmation. “And he’d named all of them.”

“Wow. My mom said rats were dirty, but my friend Simon had a pet one, and it was nice. He taught it to do tricks. Did your friends rats do tricks?”

Jason grins, remembering the looks on the faces of some Peacekeepers who’d strayed into the Tweens by accident and been greeted by Mouse rising up from the sewers on a wave of rats like a demon from hell. “You could say that.”

“Wow. I’d like to meet him.”

Tim looks thoughtful. “You know, that might not be a bad idea.”


	6. Chapter Five: Not So Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim makes plans, and Jason talks to some old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katharsis was actually an enemy of the Birds of Prey in the New 52, but that's in a 'verse without Oracle. In this Universe I'm decreeing that she teams up with them for a bit, mostly just because I can.
> 
> This ended up being much sappier than I intended, but I got things set up for the next installment, and I'll take what I can with these boys. They never do what I tell them.

There really isn’t room in Tim’s bedroom, even large as it is, for the whole of the Insurgency. They’re making do though, since Doctor Thompkins is determined Tim mustn’t exhaust himself, and they can’t very well exclude him when this whole meeting had been his idea in the first place.

Bruce had wanted to keep it small, just a few of them and then pass any decisions onto everyone else later, but Tim had been adamant. “The whole point of this meeting is to get everyone together. I know how you run things left to your own devices, Bruce, and it’s not by consensus.”

Bruce had conceded the point, although with ill grace, and now he’s sitting on one of the kitchen chairs they’ve brought up, arms crossed and cowl firmly in place, radiating disapproval.

The room is packed with familiar faces. The insurgency seems to be primarily made up of Gothamites, and the only person Jason’s never met before is Klarion and his demon from hell (because whatever he says, that thing is definitely not a cat). Black Lightning he doesn’t know well, but he’s met him a couple of times before, at Justice League meetings or while repelling alien invasions.

Tim is sitting up in bed, dressed in a nightshirt borrowed from Alfred, with Rose’s little stone mouse sitting on his shoulder. He looks more like a character from Peter Pan than a Superhero, but he’s wearing his most stubborn expression, so Jason doesn’t say so.

Constantine gets things started, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention, and saying, “You mostly know them already, but for anyone who doesn’t, these are our newest recruits, Jason and Tim, also known as the Red Hood and Red Robin. Tim wanted to speak to you all about something.”

He gestures to Tim, who sits up a little straighter and clears his throat. “Um, Hi.” He waves awkwardly. “I don’t want to overstep here, I know I’m new, but I also know what Batman’s like, and I know that out of all of you probably only Babs ever really stands up to him, and she’s had her own stuff to deal with. Bruce’s strategies have kept you guys safe so far, but I thought it was time we actually all sat down and discussed what we’re going to do next.”

Jason sneaks a glance at Bruce, who’s glaring but in a general low level way rather than his focussed ‘you are in so much trouble young man’ glare.

“I know up till now you haven’t really had a chance to stop and take stock, but right now things are quiet. We’ve got the time to actually talk. You are all experienced Heroes.” He looks nervously at Harley, but doesn’t correct himself. “I’m sure you’ve all got ideas for how we could proceed. I thought it was time we actually heard them.”

Black Lightning nods approvingly. “Good idea, kid. We can’t keep lurching from one crisis to another. We need a proper long term plan.”

“We’ve got a long-term plan,” Constantine points out. “Stop Superman. That’s it. That’s the plan.”

“We’ve had him on the ropes twice, and he’s still running things,” Selina argues. “Maybe it’s time we tried a different approach.” She turns to Tim. “You got any ideas, Red?”

“A few. Mainly, we should be recruiting. Superman has a literal army, meanwhile the whole Insurgency can fit into my bedroom. We need a recruitment drive.”

“Absolutely,” Montoya agrees. “What’s left of the GCPD are on our side, we all know that, but we’re not using them.”

“We can’t endanger civilians,” Bruce says, speaking for the first time.

“You mean endanger them more than they already are?” Babs asks. (Jason hasn’t had much of a chance to talk to her yet, but it’s wonderful to see her, even looking cross and rumpled from being carried up the stairs by Batwoman.) “They’re living in a police state ruled by an insane Superman, they’re plenty endangered already.”

“It doesn’t have to be civilians,” Tim says. “There’s plenty of metas who’ve been keeping out of it so far. The people me and Jason have been staying with for example. They’re young, but they’ve got a good mix of powers and they hate Superman. They’d join the fight if we asked, I’m sure.”

“You’re thinking too small,” Harley Quinn says. She’s holding Rose Constantine’s hand, and it occurs to Jason for the first time that being in a room filled with Superheroes like this must be pretty terrifying for her. “Why does it have to be good guys? The villains have far more of a reason to hate Superman than anyone!”

“So what, you suggest we invite Darkseid to join?” Batwoman asks sarcastically. “We’ve got enough troubles without our allies trying to kill us as well as our friends.”

“No, she’s got a point,” Selina says. “Obviously we don’t want the big name villains, but there are some smaller fish who could be useful to us. What about the Calculator for example? The man’s a genius, and Superman’s regime has got to be bad for business. Or some of the Arkhamites? We don’t have to trust them, but Penguin and Riddler could be useful to us.”

“Exactly!” Harley says, excited. “And how about some of the mercenaries? I was a member of Secret Six for a while, I know they won’t be liking this.”

“It’s risky,” Black Lightning says thoughtfully. “But as you say Catwoman, we don’t have to trust, them, just make use of their powers.”

“I still say we should be using the normal humans as well,” Montoya says.

“A little of the old hearts and minds couldn’t hurt,” Constantine agrees. “We don’t have to turn them into an army or anything, but getting the general populace on side could make a big difference.”

“How though?” Klarion asks. “They are scared, and many think Superman is protecting them from people like me.”

“There must be something we’ve got that they haven’t,” Selina argued.

“I bet they haven’t got anyone with hair like mine,” Rose says proudly. Black Lightning had arrived a little before the others so he could give Zatanna a lesson in dreadlock maintenance and now Rose’s dreads are tied up in a great knot at the back of her head.

“That isn’t…” Bruce begins, but Montoya waves a hand at him, shushing him excitedly.

“No no no, shut up Mr White Male Privilege, she’s right!”

“Our advantage is hair?”

“Our advantage is diversity. Think about it! Who benefits from Superman’s regime? Who always benefits from oppressive regimes?”

“The privileged,” Constantine says. “Bloody hell Montoya, that’s _brilliant_. Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re white, and also an idiot,” Montoya tells him. To the still confused Bruce she says, “Preach to the choir, Bruce. There’s no point trying to convert the privileged to our cause, they won’t come. They benefit from Superman’s regime. They won’t see the problem. But minority groups know a corrupt and unjust system when they see it. They know how bad things can get. That’s where we recruit.”

“And you think we will appeal to minority groups?” Bruce asks.

“Well we’re not exactly the children of all nations, but we’re better than the One World Government,” Constantine says. “We’ve certainly got queer representation covered.”

“Gays against superman 2015,” Selina suggests with a wry quirk of the lips.

“What’s a gay?” Rose asks.

“Someone who likes people the same gender as themselves,” Batwoman says, before anyone can tell Rose it’s not important. “So girls who like other girls, or boys who like other boys.”

“Oh,” Rose says, unimpressed. “Like Jason and Tim.”

“I am not gay!” Jason yells, probably a little louder than he should. You’d think a meeting about how to save the world from evil meta humans would be the one place he’d be safe from people trying to fucking out him, but apparently not. He looks to Tim for support, but Tim just nods. “Yeah, like me.” Jason’s mouth drops open. Had Tim just…

“Fascinating as all this is,” Selina says firmly, “This is really not the time. Yes, we have good queer representation, and plenty of women, but we’re still mostly white. For this strategy to work, we’d need to make a point of recruiting minority heroes.”

“Say we do that,” Constantine says, “how will anyone know? We’re a secret organisation. It’s not like we publish our membership lists.”

“Propaganda,” Babs says. “We started, with Dinah. Billions of people saw that, and I’m still keeping the footage online, moving it when Cyborg tries to take it down. But after we made that, we never did anything else. We showed people they should be scared, and they are, but we didn’t give them anything else to believe in instead. That should be our next step. Give people something to believe in, a cause to fight for.”

“Join the revolution, we have cookies and queers,” Constantine says dryly, but Jason doesn’t think he’s dismissing the idea. He’s like Dick, that pathological need to find the joke in everything, only with a much darker sense of humour.

“We can work out the exact messages when we know what we’re working with. Recruitment should be our first priority.” Jason can’t help smiling at the way Babs takes control, ordering around even Batman. He hadn’t known her especially well back in his Robin days, though she’d helped him out in both civilian and vigilante life, tutoring him in the small important things that Dick and Bruce inevitably forgot. They’d become closer since his death. For a long time she’d been the only member of the family really willing to give him the time of day. She was a good deal more ruthless than Bruce in some way, less horrified by his new lethal fighting style, and Oracle had been selling him information for a long time before he found out who she really was.

“Me and Jason can contact the Movement, see if we can set something up there,” Tim says, smiling in a way that makes Jason’s heart lurch. “Harley and Selina are probably the best people to contact the Arkhamites. We don’t know how they’d react to the rest of us.”

“I’m going to try and get hold of Madam Xanadu,” Constantine says. “She’s untrustworthy, but she’s also the most powerful seer in the world. And if we’re looking to recruit among the less reputable crowds, I know a few people who might be willing to help out if it means putting the boot into Superman and his regime.”

“I’m sure we all know people who could really help,” Montoya says. “Robin’s right, recruitment should be our priority while things are calm. I suggest we all start finding some new members for this little revolution of ours. Once we’ve strengthened our numbers a bit, then we can work out our next step.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tim falls asleep the moment the others leave, exhausted by the unaccustomed activity, but not before giving Jason his orders. (Jason wishes like hell disobeying Tim didn’t make him feel like a scolded puppy, but it does, so he finds it easier to go along with whatever Tim orders him to do. The replacement isn’t scarier than Batman, but he somehow manages to be just as hard to disobey.)

Which is why Jason is sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop which is currently booting up Babs’ super secret awesome untraceable version of Skype, trying to work out what the hell he’s going to say to the Movement.

He’d been expecting Ven to answer. She objects strongly to people assuming she must be the techie one just because she’s disabled, but she’s also addicted to these weird Japanese cartoons that Tim seems to know everything about. (Because there apparently isn’t a fucking subject on earth that baby bird isn’t a fucking expert on, it’s infuriating.)

Instead it’s Katharsis’ annoyed face that appears when he types in the ID they use for Channel M.

“This better be important, I was one snipe away from winning the match,” she says, irritated and intimidating in the way that makes Jason realise that, to his great surprise, he’s actually missed her. Missed all of them. “Oh Hood, hey! I guess you and Red made it to Batman’s super-secret hideout alright then?”

It had never occurred to him that they might worry. Now he wonders if he should have called them or something, at least to let them know Tim’s okay. They’d all liked Tim.

“We, uh, we got here in one piece,” he says awkwardly. He’s good with words, always has been, but he left his capacity for small talk six feet under the grass of a Gotham cemetery. “Batman got a proper Doctor to take a look at Tim. She says he’ll be okay.”

Katharsis doesn’t smile, just nods with a sort of grim satisfaction. Of all the Movement, she’s the one he gets on with best, probably because she’s almost as angry and emotionally stunted as him. “Good. Stay there. I’m going to fetch the others.”

He stops himself before he tells her not to bother. This offer he’s got to make is best made to all of them, or as many as are available.

While he waits for her to return he fetches himself a beer. He doesn’t drink as a rule, but living under the same roof as Bruce, even just for a couple of days, is making him feel like a rebellious teenager again, determined to do things that he knows Bruce would disapprove of. Constantine (who Jason has decided he likes, even if he doesn’t yet trust him) is proving to be an excellent source of harmless vices, providing him with beer and cigarettes, and inviting him along to the semi-regular poker nights he, Zatanna, Selina and Harley hold. (He’d expected Harley to be the world’s worst poker player given the overdramatic way she usually broadcasts her every emotion, but it turns out her skills in psychology coupled with a wide grin that nothing shakes makes her pretty much unbeatable, even when all of them are cheating).

When he comes back to the screen, Mouse is there, face way too close to the camera so that all Jason can see of him is one of his yellow eyes. After a moment of scuffling, Ven drags him back so that Jason can see all them. Christopher and Tremor are missing, but the other four are all there, grinning like they’re genuinely pleased to see him. It’s a little nice and a lot weird.

“Why didn’t you _call_ us, you ass?” Virtue asks immediately, her voice coming out crackly and faint. The computers they have down in the Sweatshop are mostly constructed out of bits the rest of the city threw away, and nothing ever works quite like it’s supposed to. After being used to Bat technology, it had been frustrating. “Christopher was convinced Pandora had dropped you both into a black hole or something. He’s been muttering about witches ever since.”

“We got here okay,” Jason says. “Didn’t even have to sell our souls or anything.” Does he never have a soul anymore, he wonders idly, or did it stay in the afterlife when the rest of him clawed its way back? “Tim’s already taking over, ordering Batman around and getting things organised to his satisfaction.”

“He orders around _Batman_?” Katharsis asks, sounding a little awed, and Jason remembers that she’d lived in Gotham for a time, had worked with the Birds of Prey, and so has that instinctive awe of Bruce that only Gothamites have.

“Perks of being his kid,” Jason says, shrugging. “Nightwing can…” he trails off, the reality of Dick’s death hitting him all over again, the way it has been a couple of times an hour since he found out. “And you must have heard the way Oracle talks to him.”

“Well yeah,” Katharsis says, “But that’s Oracle.” She says the name with even more awe than she’d said Batman, and Jason can’t help smiling a little at just how formidable his big sister grew up to be. The Joker tried to break them, and maybe he’d kinda managed with Jason, but Oracle’s whole existence is like one giant fuck you to the Clown Prince of Crime, and Jason can’t help loving her for it.

Mouse laughs his strange rasping laugh. He’s bare-chested as usual, and his skin is mottled with bruises.

“You guys didn’t get into trouble for this did you?” Jason asks, feeling the unfamiliar pangs of worry. Worrying about Tim is second nature now, after three years, but caring about anyone else still takes him by surprise.

“Peacekeepers caught ‘Shanna and Christopher sneaking back in,” Ven says. “They were just being dicks, showing of their power because they could, but of course this one…” she elbows Mouse in one of his bruises, making him wince and giggle, “had to get involved.”

“No-one gets to push Tremor round like that,” Mouse says firmly. “Just because I don’t love her more than cheese anymore, doesn’t mean it’s okay for people to hit her.”

“We won,” Virtue says with a certain satisfaction, “but things are pretty tense and they’ve doubled the watch on the borders. It’s getting hard to get food in.”

Jason feels guilty, but not as much as he knows he should. They knew the risks when they agreed to help them. All the same, he makes a mental note to lay the problem out before Tim, see if he can see a way to help that doesn’t involve teleporting in and breaking some heads. (There aren’t many situations that can’t be solved that way, but Jason is willing to concede that this might be one of them.)

“Is this a social call, or did you want something?” Virtue asks, and Jason remembers that she doesn’t like electronic communication, to used to getting emotional feedback from anyone she talks to to be comfortable with only an image on a screen. He doesn’t know when he’d accumulated all these little titbits of useless information about them all. He’d kept to himself the last year, but at some point they’d all wormed their way under his defences, become something like friends. It’s an unsettling realisation.

“We… Tim, has joined the insurgency.” (It’s going to take a lot more time and some hard evidence before he believes that he’s not just being kept here as a favour to Tim, or worse, as a way of making sure he doesn’t go and do anything Daddy Bat would disapprove of). “They’re looking to expand their membership. Tim suggested you guys might be interested in helping put the boot in.”

“The Peacekeepers killed Maurice,” Mouse says, no doubt talking about one of his rats. How he remembers all their names, Jason has no idea. “I want to _bite_ them.” Which is Mouse speak for saying he’s on board.

“We’ve got people to protect,” Virtue says. “But if we can help without endangering them, we will.”

“You know I’m down for sticking it to the man, Hood,” Katharsis says with a fierce grin, which is why she’s his favourite. “What does the Big Bad Bat need us to do?”

“Don’t know yet. They’re still working that bit out. But Oracle wants to make some propaganda films or something, and I think you guys might get invited to join. One of the Insurgency, she thinks they should be showing off the fact that they’re not all straight white middle aged dudes. Try and inspire some kind of minority uprising. I thought that sounded like your kind of thing.”

Katharsis laughs. “It will never work, people are too scared, but I like the idea. You want my beautiful face in one of your films, you just say the word.”

“We’d all be happy to help,” Virtue says. “Especially if it means getting to meet Batwoman. I’ve _always_ wanted to meet Batwoman.”

“I’ll arrange an introduction,” Jason promises, amused. Ven calls Virtue Little Caesar, and she plays the role so well that it’s easy to forget that underneath it all she’s just an idealistic teenager with the power to back up her dreams.

“That’s enough business,” Ven says, leaning forward. “How are you?”

She means it. He knows she does. Ven is one of those rare strange people who genuinely cares, about everyone. It’s strange to have someone worry about him like that, even stranger when the others all nod, like they care as well.

“I’m… okay,” he says slowly. “It’s weird as hell living with Batman again. I mean, the last time I shared houseroom with him I was fifteen and had never been dead.” He makes no secret of that bit of his past, though he doesn’t know if they realise he means it literally. “I feel like a kid again. I’m sitting here drinking a beer just because I know Bats wouldn’t like it!”

Katharsis laughs. “You going to start staying out late and kissing unsuitable boys?”

Kissing boys. Kissing boys like Tim, who’d more or less admitted he’s gay not half an hour ago, a revelation Jason still hasn’t had time to process.

He knows he’s blushing, and Ven must notice, because she elbows Katharsis and says, “Leave him alone. You know he’s a one man kinda guy.”

Which… is actually true, and he’s not sure when that happened. God, he hasn’t even told Tim how he feels, hasn’t got the faintest idea if his feelings might be reciprocated, and he can’t imagine wanting anyone else.

Somewhere in three years of running and hiding and stealing from hospitals, he’d fallen in love and made friends, and he doesn’t even remember doing it. Maybe he really has gone mad. But even if he has, it’s not so bad, not when Tim’s feeling better, and Babs had hugged him before she left, and Bruce had cried over him, and Ven and Virtue and Mouse are all grinning at him while Katharsis tries to pretend she’s all tough and not secretly as big a sap as the rest of him.

No, it’s not so bad. He might even, if forced, go so far as to say it’s good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it! The end of this installment. Thank you all for sticking with this. This is the first story I've ever written with more commentings than kudos,and I like it. Don't worry, it shouldn't be long till the next part of this series, which will be focussing on Harley and Selina as they recruit some familar, and villainous, faces. (But there should be plenty more of our ridiculous love birds, along with all the rest of the Insurgency).

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, or I'll tell Superman where you live.


End file.
